STAMFORD -- With snow piled up from three storms in less than a month, Stamford plow crews spent Thursday trucking piles of snow off downtown streets to create better visibility for drivers and pedestrians, city Director of Operations Ernie Orgera said.

Starting at 7 a.m., 15 workers used front loaders to whisk away snow banks from targeted downtown streets in the wake of an overnight storm that blanketed the city with 14 inches Wednesday.

The crews cleared Main Street, Bank Street, West Park Place, and Atlantic Street, trucking the snow to a city property on Washington Boulevard to pile the unwanted mess on the same land that this summer hosted the Big Apple Circus.

Orgera said workers completed the job during regular hours with city equipment, avoiding the need to pay overtime or incur extra expenses.

"We had a lot of equipment out there," Orgera said. "A couple front end loaders, a big snow loader; we had small machines to plow the sidewalks, Bobcats to go along the curbs and eight containers to load the snow onto."

The crews will return Friday to clear lower Summer Street as well as Broad, Hoyt, Forest and Prospect streets and Glenbrook Road. If possible, crews would try to clear Bedford Street as well, Orgera said.

Assistant Chief Peter Brown of Stamford Fire & Rescue said firefighters will be out shoveling the city's 1,900 hydrants for the next few days and asked the public's help identifying those that are buried under snow.

The city fire department asked residents to call 203-977-5555 to report blocked or buried hydrants.

"We started yesterday as soon as the storm stopped," Brown said Thursday. "We had crews out and we have crews out right now. It's a big job."

The cleanup work follows citywide plowing that began Tuesday night. Seventy to 80 workers cleared city streets from 9 p.m. Tuesday until 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

The plowing went more smoothly than the post-Christmas storm that walloped the Northeast Dec. 26, in part because fewer city vehicles broke down, Orgera said.

"They did a fabulous job this time," he said. "We got a better response because we filled all the routes."

Though it seemed fewer motorists left vehicles parked on snow emergency routes, blocked lanes were still a problem.

"There were still a lot of people parked on the emergency routes," Orgera said. "When cars are parked there what happens is the road gets tighter, there's no place to put the snow, so it makes it unsafe for everybody."

Orgera said totals on overtime costs responding to Tuesday night's storm are not yet available.

However, with $800,000 set aside in the contingency fund for snow removal, the city should have sufficient money to withstand six additional storms, Office of Policy Management Director Pete Privitera said.

The post-Christmas storm cost $100,000 in overtime, or one- fifth of the city's snow removal overtime budget, which is $500,000. That storm dumped 16.4 inches across Stamford, or the fourth highest inch count in the state, according to the mayor's office.

Staff Writer Magdalene Perez can be reached at magdalene.perez@scni.com 203-964-2240.